hter of Darius.

Here, you should be told, is the end of the empire of the Tartar Lord of
the Levant. And this city is also the limit of Persia in the direction
between east and north-east.[NOTE 1]

Now, let us quit this city, and I will tell you of another country called
DOGANA.[NOTE 2]

When you have quitted the city of which I have been speaking, you ride
some 12 days between north-east and east, without finding any human
habitation, for the people have all taken refuge in fastnesses among the
mountains, on account of the Banditti and armies that harassed them. There
is plenty of water on the road, and abundance of game; there are lions
too. You can get no provisions on the road, and must carry with you all
that you require for these 12 days.[NOTE 3]

NOTE 1.--BALKH, "the mother of cities," suffered mercilessly from
Chinghiz. Though the city had yielded without resistance, the whole
population was marched by companies into the plain, on the usual Mongol
pretext of counting them, and then brutally massacred. The city and its
gardens were fired, and all buildings capable of defence were levelled.
The province long continued to be harried by the Chaghataian inroads. Ibn
Batuta, sixty years after Marco's visit, describes the city as still in
ruins, and as uninhabited: "The remains of its mosques and colleges," he
says, "are still to be seen, and the painted walls traced with azure." It
is no doubt the Vaeq (Valq) of Clavijo, "very large, and surrounded by a
broad earthen wall, thirty paces across, but breached in many parts." He
describes a large portion of the area within as sown with cotton. The
account of its modern state in Burnes and Ferrier is much the same as Ibn
Batuta's, except that they found some population; two separate towns
within the walls according to the latter. Burnes estimates the circuit of
the ruins at 20 miles. The bulk of the population has been moved since
1858 to Takhtapul, 8 miles east of Balkh, where the Afghan Government is
placed.

(_Erdmann_, 404-405; _I. B._ III. 59; _Clavijo_, p. 117; _Burnes_, II.
204-206; _Ferrier_, 206-207.)

According to the legendary history of Alexander, the beautiful Roxana was
the daughter of Darius, and her father in a dying interview with Alexander
requested the latter to make her his wife:--

"Une fille ai mult bele; se prendre le voles.
Vus en seres de l'mont tout li mius maries," etc.
(_Lambert Le Court_, p. 256.)

NOTE 2.--The country ca